Bracket Blog

Today's bubble discussion for our group is a comparison between Michigan and Syracuse. Michigan lost to Northwestern on the road while Syracuse won on the road at Louisville. So how do the resumes of these teams stack up. Let's take a look.

Current Position: Michigan was a 9 seed and Syracuse was 1st team out heading into the week. Michigan is currently 18-7 with RPI of 39 and Syracuse is 16-8 with RPI of 40. Using the team sheets available at warrennolan.com we must look further into these teams.

Tier 1 wins is our first criteria: Michigan 2-5Syracuse 2-4

Tier 2 wins Michigan 2-2Syracuse 4-3

Quality wins: Michigan: Road vs RPI 28Road vs RPI 38

Syracuse: Home vs RPI 27Road vs RPI 42

Tough lossesMichigan: noneSyacuse; 1 Tier 3 - home to RPI 76

Non conf SOSMichigan 238Syracuse 22

Road/neutral recordMichigan: 5-6Syracuse: 4-5

This comparison leaves us selecting Michigan by the slimmest of margins., due to two road quality wins and no tier 3 losses. An argument for Syracuse can easily be made. So how does the change seeding?

Michigan was at 36 overall and Syracuse being first out was effectively 47 (46 at-large- include major conference champions). Our group must decide to either move Michigan down or Syracuse up. However, there are 10 other teams in between that must also be considered. In fact in the actual committee room, these two teams may not even be compared due to the separation of the seed numbers. Also the last 4 teams voted in are in the play-in games regardless of comparisons, which Syracuse may be a part of currently. Our decision is Michigan moves down and Syracuse stays out for now.